


Another Time

by pagets



Category: The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 18:29:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3081125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagets/pseuds/pagets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“But she’s not just a palate cleanser, is she?” Marissa concludes and as unwilling as Eli was to admit there was any truth to that tidbit his ex-wife had offered to their daughter he responds,</p><p>“No, she wasn’t.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Time

**Author's Note:**

> [inset necessary disclaimer]  
> first fic, particulatly f/m fic, i have written in a while and first attempt at good wife fic. i've just fallen in love with eli/natalie and there is a dire lack of fic for them so here we are.  
> this is pretty dialogue heavy, as is most of my work. really trying to work on that and get a balance of insightful, profound description and witty, wonderful dialogue.  
> all mistakes are my own.

They meet for dinner at his apartment two days after Peter wins the election, after he last saw Natalie he thinks too himself. Marissa’s eighteen now, custody arrangements are null and they don’t see each other nearly as much as they should. They’ve always had a good relationship, even with the divorce any bad blood between he and Vanessa hadn’t scarred their daughter, he hoped. His ex-wife’s insights into his psyche were as far as she took it and Marissa was old enough now not to let anything either of them said sway her one way or another.

 

But the divorce had molded their relationship in certain, perhaps stereotypical, ways.  Aside from big decisions like moving it Israel, Eli was for all intents and purposes the ‘fun one’, unburdened by the day-to-day trials of raising a teenager or having the delightful task of dishing out regular punishments. Their time together was a release for them both, but mostly him. Eli’s time with his daughter was a precious commodity and usually coincided with a break from the stress of work. That is, when she wasn’t hanging out at campaign headquarters being such a brat, or according to Vanessa, so much like her father.

 

Usually, they went out to dinner, but coming down from the high of winning the election Eli was much more up for a quiet night in and some of the delicious Chinese take out he’d recently discovered just a few blocks from his apartment building.

 

So there they were, on either side of his kitchen island eating straight from the cartons and jumping from topic to topic.

 

“So, was the party good? It’s must have been so hectic when the news came through that you guys won.” Eli hummed, nodding his head in agreement, continuing to chew before he answered her verbally.

 

“Totally crazy, I think even _Jackie_ got drunk.” He said giving her a pointed look and being all too familiar with her father and the elder Mrs. Florrick’s antics, Marissa chuckled.

 

“Sorry we couldn’t make it, I voted for Peter you know? I think Mom did too. She wouldn’t say it but I know she was really proud of you.” Eli grinned sheepishly in response.

 

“It was fantastic, you wouldn’t believe what some of the campaign workers got up to…” He trailed off detailing some of the exploits he’d witnessed in his own semi-drunken state, ”…even Nat—“ He stopped abruptly, not wanting to get into a conversation about his ill fated crush with his nosey, pushy, clearly genetically his, daughter. But his efforts to redirect the conversation were futile.

 

“Natalie? As in seemingly-nice-girl-you-screwed-over, took-my-place-at-dinner, Natalie?” She inquires.

 

“Yes. That would be the one.” He said, hanging his head.

 

“Why was she at the celebration party of the campaign that made her life hell?”

 

“Because…because I invited her.” He eventually got the words out and then quickly added, “And she only stopped by for a minute, to tell me she was leaving.”

 

“Leaving? Like getting deported, leaving?” Marissa worryingly asks.

 

“No, no, no.” Eli quickly quells her fears. “As in she got a job in D.C., leaving.”

 

“Oh.” She pondered the information for a moment, “So wait, why does she not totally hate you?”

 

 _‘Yes, she should,’_ Eli thought. It would actually make the whole situation so much easier to bear.

 

“Because she should totally hate you.”

 

Eli reluctantly, after more probing from his daughter, delved into what had happened with Natalie’s father, how he had helped her, how she started interning at Lockhart & Gardner upon his recommendation and how that had led to her getting a job due to her linguistic skills. He even filled in some prior gaps in her knowledge of his interactions with Natalie her hadn’t been so kind as to offer in their pervious, very brief, conversation on the matter.

 

 

“Why are you grinning? Stop grinning at me like that.”

 

“Dad, you totally love her.” She states, as if it’s the most logical jump to make.

 

“I don’t-Wh-I…“ He struggled to find his words,” That’s preposterous!”

 

“Okay, maybe not ‘love’, but Dad She exclaims as though _but Dad_ was supposed to instantly translate to something coherent and meaningful. His lack of understanding was evident to her by the look on his face.

 

_Eli Gold could not control his face._

 

“I don’t know if I believe in love at first sight or love after very limited sightings but you’re totally smitten.”

 

“Smitten?” He grimaces. “I’m pretty sure that’s not what the kids are calling it. How old are you again?”

 

“Stop deflecting.”

 

“It’s not love, it’ll wear off in a few weeks. Probably the next time I see your mother and remember what happened the last time I was supposedly in love.”

 

“But she’s not just a palate cleanser, is she?” Marissa concludes and as unwilling as Eli was to admit there was any truth to that tidbit his ex-wife had offered to their daughter he responds,

 

“No, she wasn’t.”

 

The use of past tense doesn’t go unnoticed by Marissa, “Wasn’t?” She questions.

 

“Well, she’s gone.” He states matter-of-factly.

 

“She’s not dead, Dad. She probably hasn’t even left yet and it’s only D.C.”

 

“Yes. Washington D.C. as in not Chicago, Illinois.”

 

“Well, I’m moving to Israel, that’s hell of a lot further and it’s not gonna remove me from existence.” Eli rolls his eyes.

 

“You’re my daughter, unfortunately the possibility of that happening was about 19 years ago.”  This time the eye roll belongs to the younger Gold.

 

“All I’m saying is that I’ve never seen you like this before. If you really like her then—“

 

“We’ll live happily ever after?” He interrupts, a mocking tone in his voice.

 

“No, but that’s what I’m saying, who knows what could happen. She won’t be in D.C. forever. You might not be in Chicago forever. It’s about the possibilities. Isn’t that like, a major part of your job? Seeing all of the possible outcomes from the information available to you at the time?”

 

“What’s possible is that she’ll just marry her young, handsome, French-Canadian, contortionist boyfriend and forget all about the creepy old guy that lied to her and made a complete fool of himself.”

 

“You’re not so forgettable, Dad. Give yourself some credit,” he smiles softly at her attempts to counter his self-deprecation, “the timing’s just wrong, that’s all. Dismiss it as my sweet, innocent, eighteen year old naivety but next time things could be different.”

 

 

> _‘If this were another time.’_
> 
> _‘Yeah.’_

 

“So I leave it up to fate, is what you’re saying?” He says one eyebrow raised.

 

“Or just see what happens. You could be right to let this go but you just don’t know! You could see her another time whether it’s in six months, or a year, or 2 years and if you get that feeling in your chest like it’s tightening and exploding at the same time, like I know you’ve been feeling even if you won’t admit it, then I don’t think this is something you should walk away from. And then you’ll know.”

 

“You deserve to be happy, Dad.”  

 

* * *

 

He calls a few days later, the day he knows she’s leaving and honestly, he’s relieved he gets her voicemail. _“Hey, Natalie, it’s me, Eli. Eli Gold. Um, I just wanted to call and wish you a safe flight,”_ his words are slow, awkward and carefully chosen. He’s nervous. _“And just to tell you that I, I know what I want from you. Do you remember that you asked me that? You asked me what I wanted from you and I said I didn’t know but I know now. I, I want to see you again.”_

 

Listening to the message hours later, Natalie’s breath hitches. Fresh off the plan from Chicago to D.C. she feels upset at the missed opportunity to have seen him one more time. She would have gone to see him and she doesn’t want to think too much about why. Why she would have dropped everything, made time in her busy schedule of packing, organizing and saying goodbye to friends and family to see this man, who deceived her, who participated in making her a spectacle to the media, and casualty of his political campaign. _‘Because he changed your life,’_ she thinks. _‘He turned it totally and completely upside down and now you have a fantastic job in the nations capital. Eli Gold changed your life.’_ And she likes him. A lot. But that’s not a thought she’s willing to think right now.

 

The message continues, _“Not right now. I know you’re probably busy sorting everything out or,”_ he sighs audibly, _“already on the plane but I want to see you again. Next time you come back here or the next time I’m in D.C., it doesn’t matter I just-you said ‘If this were another time,’ and it will be, one day. It will be another time and your Cirque du Soleil may or may not still be in the picture and I’ll be even older but that’s what I want from you, Natalie. I want to see you again. Marissa says that’s important, my daughter, Marissa-not-the-six-year-old. She says when I see you again and I’ll know…I’ll…”_ He trails off and then begins again with more conviction. _“I’ll know. So…another time, Natalie.”_

 

She breathes out slowly, moved but what he’s said to her and what he couldn’t bring himself to say. She opens the messenger application on her phone and contemplates how to respond. There is so much she had wanted to say the night of the election and there is even more she wants to say now. She wants to tell him how unlikely it is that Andre will still be in the picture, how much she doesn’t care how much older he is, how sweet it is that he’s even mentioned this situation to his daughter beyond their run in at dinner but then she thinks they’ll be another time for those conversations and so, when Eli receives her message back in Chicago it simply reads:

 

 

> **From:** Natalie
> 
> **Sent:** 11:43 p.m.
> 
> Another time, x

 

And Eli hopes.


End file.
